


I know I’ve only felt religion when I’ve lied with you

by moonlitmon



Category: bts
Genre: Angst, Intense TW, Intense use of drugs, Love Triangle??, M/M, OT7, Underage Drinking, but maybe also the song, honestly euphoria inspired this, improper use of heroin, namgi, namkook, read cautiously, seriously this is super intense, stay safe kids, the show not the song
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23340196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitmon/pseuds/moonlitmon
Summary: In which Jeongguk feels like he’ll last forever whenever he’s happy, the heroin does a pretty good job of making it feel that way too. Or, Namjoon is back from university, and he loves the boy with scars and doe eyes.Major TW please be safe reading.
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Namjoon | RM, Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	1. A Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Halsey. Mood music: All for us by Labrinth
> 
> Severely unedited, pls bare with me while I fix it
> 
> TW for this chapter  
> Underage drinking and smoking  
> Implied underage sex  
> Underage flirting (is that a thing?)
> 
> Be safe

Not everyone deserves a good life. Jeongguk thinks that if he had the choice, he wouldn’t want one. Wouldn’t really matter that much either since the majority of his life has revolved around staying alive long enough to say that he’s survived the day.

Not that it’s anyone’s business either though.

Jeongguk thinks that, even if he was born in a big house, with both of his parents instead of neither of them, he would still find his way here.

“Are you sure?”

Jeongguk raises his eybrows at the boy who’s holding out the small joint. A decent sized one too. No fucking roach that boys usually offer.

“You worried ‘bout me or something?” Jeongguk scoffs, “That’s a first.”

And it’s true. No one ever really cares enough at these things to be worried about anyone. If anything, the fact that anyone is here is another nail in the coffin. Really, all they are is relying on strangers. Dangerous, yes. Relieving? Absolutely.

As long as no one recognizes the fragility of a human life, it doesn’t matter too much if you drink or smoke, or pay for the more expensive stuff in little bags.

“Listen, I know this isn’t really your scene. How old even are you? Fuckin fiftee—“

“Making sure you don’t hit on a minor?” Jeongguk narrows his eyes at the boy. His vision is a little blurred, spinning and careening itself atop the muddle of earth and concrete that this party is being held at. Jeongguk thinks that he’s been a lot worse. This is fine.

“That’s not—“

“Not that it’s any of your concern” Jeongguk inhales. Holds it for a second longer than he definitely should have. Releases it into the boy’s face. Man’s face? Jeongguk isn’t sure anymore. The colors his eyes are trying to see are hard to un-smudge. Looks like a mosaic, “I’m seventeen. Almost eighteen.” 

Jeongguk hopes the guy can see that he’s not too fucked up. Not that Jeongguk believes in having standards when he’s drunk off liquor anyways, but he still thinks it should be worth something if Jeongguk has to wake up next to the guy in the morning. 

This one doesn’t look to bad. Enough to fuck maybe..

“Almost?”

Jeongguk smiles. The one that makes the men at these parties smirk, make them get closer, lips to his ears hot with desire. He never understood the fascination, but apparently he’s fucking adorable when he shows his teeth. Whenever any of the men fuck him though, they tend to let out murmurs of “bunny”, “bun” and the such. Jeongguk thinks that is what is going through the guy’s head right now.

“First of September. ‘M a Virgo” 

“Cute”

“I know”

The span of space and distance from Jeongguk and the man—Jeongguk can see it now, the way the stubble spans the sharp jaw line and weary eyes—minimizes to a breath’s distance. Close enough to smell the burn of whiskey on the man. 

Jeongguk quickly determines that the smell will be worth the night if he can get just a little bit more drunk. A bit more faded.

“Can I take you home?” The man grips the tight lining of the shirt that Jeongguk is wearing. If the thing can even be considered a shirt. It’s basically just see through soft fabric that does little to nothing in the fading winter weather. Spring is right around the corner anyways.

And, like Jeongguk doesn’t believe in any other word that exists within the English language, he tips his head back and breathes out slow and steady.

“Please”

Yeah, Jeongguk doesn’t believe in life being good. But if heroin’s got anything to do with it. It’ll makes things a hell of a lot easier to bear.

————-

The first of September stings like a wasp, and the day that Namjoon gets out of the backseat of his mother’s Subaru, he feels like the boy who left here three years ago. Tall and tender, lanky and golden, a heartbeat away from destroying his entire world for the fêel of a soundboard, a beat, a chorus. 

Namjoon breathes in and thinks of summer and what he’s missed.

“Not much” his mother reassures him. A gentle hand on his face, like if she blinks, he’ll disappear all the way off to London again. Studying abroad never really rubbed his mom the right way. Namjoon places his palm on hers. A quiet reassurance that places his heart in a deep ache and a splendid soak.

He is back home. 

Unpacking his boxes from his old room in London is like a chore that manages to take longer than it really should. Mostly because with every ratty undergraduate tee, and a cracked CD case, the flood of _Yoongi Yoongi Yoongi_ tips deeper into Namjoon’s palm. Steady and quick.

_“So, the first thing you do when you finally manage to get home is to unpack one box, and then get emo enough to call me? Joon, we literally saw each other less than twenty hours ago god.”_

“Is it now a crime to call a friend that I miss? That’s unfair.” Namjoon sets his phone near his ear and lets his shoulder hold the weight as he unpacks the closest box to him.

_“It is when we’re literal roommates and we sleep in the same bed.”_

Namjoon’s heart does a small jump when Yoongi’s drawl reaches his ears. It’s stupid, he knows, to have a lingering there that should not have happened. It really is quite cliche, the way Namjoon’s life has become a drama. Hoseok would love this.

“How is that my fault? You’re the one that wanted more space to do yoga or whatever it’s called.”

_“It’s called meditation you uncultured pig.” A scratchy sight across the line, “No wonder you moved back home for the year. Your mind isn’t being taken care of properly.”_

Namjoon continues to pick up the pieces of his heart that manage to slowly chip away with every syllable Yoongi says, just like the CDs in the big brown box labeled “Muzic stuff uwu” in Yoongi’s messy handwriting. Namjoon thinks its endearing. Yoongi had been the one to organize his stuff before he left London. Said Namjoon would find a way to completely mess up everything if he packed himself.

“I moved back to get away from the capatilist culture of the music industry. You of all people should be supporting this break from society.” Namjoon thinks that the colors of his wall, a light beige, seems to slowly be splattered with his heart. A left over of the years of high school. Finally coming to light after three years of being absolutely desolate, “I gotta drop by Home Depot later and get paint. The color of my walls scream ‘emo joon’”

_“ I do support you, it’s just so last minute don’t you think? Also, Aw emo joon. An era I will never forget. Also Also, get blue, I heard it’s supposed to calm you or whatever.” Yoongi sounds just as sleepy as ever through the phone and Namjoon finally finds the time to think of the time difference between them. It’s not too intense, but Yoongi likes to sleep until he physically cannot anymore._

“Yeah yeah, what is life if there are no risks right? Please don’t harass me. Blue. I’ll keep that in mind.” Namjoon has barely made a dent in the box he’s been working on because of the very short phone call he’s having, but he thinks if it takes him the rest of the year to fully unpack, he wouldn’t mind a single bit if Yoongi was the one to distract him.

“Listen, you’re being a huge pain in the ass right now, so I’ll call you later alright?” In a language that only close roommates or siblings or pining lovers tend to use, Namjoon makes sure to let Yoongi know he loves him in a small quiet way. The same way the tides of the ocean meet the sand in greeting. A quick hello, a somber goodbye.

Yoongi grumbles a goodbye and says he won’t miss Namjoon’s snoring one bit tonight before the dial tone rings clear and loud.

Namjoon’s never the one to hang up first.

Thinks that if he did, then there would be little to no poetic lyrics to use in his songs. 

Namjoon takes a week to fully unpack. Posters and CDs litter every surface. Almost like he never really left. 

It’s only when his mom comes in does he remember he wanted to paint his walls and will have to reorganize everything all over again.

Life is good, Namjoon thinks.


	2. Spill All Your Secrets and Stall the Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And maybe, despite his life up until this point had been nothing but cold nights walking back to his room, drunk or high out of his mind, he believed that the second he saw Jimin, it felt _right_.
> 
> Jimin felt right the same way breathing feels right when you’ve been drowning your entire fucking life.
> 
> He feels that the only things that tend to make Namjoon happy now these days is the fact that he hasn’t addressed the entire issue of problem number one. 
> 
> Not quite yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these types of storylines tend to give into a deeper need to understand people in pain and joy, but I hope to let you know that this is realistic and many people experience the things Jeongguk tends to do. I hope that whether this translates to an entertaining/angsty read, there is a sense of horror in the words and a hope to eradicate it.
> 
> Title from K. Flay, mood music The Cops.
> 
> I promise that this is somewhat planned but truthfully, I’m going to try my best in not knowing what /exactly/ will happen. So at the moment, the tags may be accurate, but they are bound to change.
> 
> TW:  
> mentions of drugs, specifically heroin.  
> Mentions of Suicide  
> Self-harm  
> An Overdose scene  
> Panic Attacks  
> Slight blood warning  
> Abuse, both sexual and emotional
> 
> Please stay safe.
> 
> Very unedited..

It hurts the next day.

Sears into the backside of Jeongguk’s neck and the lower end of his spine. It aches to walk and Jeongguk can only assume that the high he felt last night had left him in the cold of dawn, right where the sunset tends to burn your eyes, pink and blue and orange. Because as Jeongguk stands to move towards the bathroom door that belongs to the man he let fuck him last night, the dread of waking up sober hits him harder than a freight train.

Straight into his chest, a hammer that tends to break bones. Jeongguk wracks his brain, trying to remember the last time he was this sober. It’s far back enough to let that question singe away along with the pain.

The bathroom is pretty and obviously expensive. Too bad that the man didn’t have any drugs left behind the small pop-out mirror in the restroom. Jeongguk checked after he used the restroom, frightened to look at himself in the mirror while snooping. 

Regardless of his attempt to avoid himself, a bathroom in an expensive apartment always has an angle you can view yourself at, so Jeongguk does get a little sliver of his own reflection before leaving. 

And he looks like hell. 

No, Jeongguk thinks, he looks like _sex_ if the marks around his neck and chest are anything to go by. There’s a hand-shaped bruise around Jeongguk’s neck that he’s sure will only get worse with time, his lips are bitten raw and plumper than usual. The make-up that Jeongguk tediously put on last night is smudged around his eyes, his hair isn’t any better. 

He’s naked and stops for a second to look at the way his ribs dip and curve, the hickeys more apparent than ever. His tapered waist is usually the highlight during these hookups and Jeongguk finds finger-shaped bruises on his hips, sitting snug and lovely. He feels claimed and doesn’t care that his heart shatters at that thought.

Jeongguk presses down on one of the bruises and wills himself to not get hard again.

The hand that pulls away from his body is sprinkled in stickers from the party. Little delicate things that are frayed and falling. Jeongguk isn’t usually the type to wear stickers to a party, more of Jimin’s thing really, but it does a pretty good job of hiding the long scars that start from the curve of his wrist, down and down to the mid section of his forearm.

The man had asked about them, Jeongguk remembers suddenly. While he was bouncing on the older man’s cock, the whines pulling from him with every movement. He asked and Jeongguk laughed and said it was nothing. _Nothing nothing nothing._

So now, as he slips the rest of his tattered shirt on (it’s ripped from what Jeongguk can assume is from the man’s desire and no patience) and his jeans and sneakers, he curses the man for not saving any drugs for the morning. Jeongguk is mind-blowingly sober enough to feel every pulse of blood around his body and his breath that shakes and stutters as if his heart is willing it’s last sigh out of Jeongguk’s chest.

And Jeongguk thinks for the billionth time of his seventeen years: Being alive fucking sucks.

Because it really does when being a drug addict is pretty much your entire identity. Being sober feels like dying, truly.

It’s only after leaving the slightly high-end apartment that Jeongguk realizes that he can’t exactly walk straight. There’s a limp in his walk and if anyone asks, besides that small instant memory of riding the man, Jeongguk doesn’t really remember getting the life fucked out of him. But if the way his throat aches, he assumes it must’ve been worth the night.

Jeongguk starts the long walk back to the house the government wants him to call “home.” It’s not as bad as it sounds truthfully. Mostly because walking down the streets of New York is a lot less scarier for a couple of reasons.

For one, no one is New York really _cares_. Maybe if the outcome affected their wellbeing, _maybe_ , but the general rule tended to be mind your own fucking business. Secondly, Jeongguk has had enough run ins with the concept of the walk of shame enough to know what to do. Keep your head down and walk like your life depended on it. Which sometimes, it did. 

Sneakers dragging on concrete, flimsy little top ripped at the back, making each step feel like a flounce. The wind kicks up the material and Jeongguk thinks of Jimin laughing at how pretty Jeongguk still is despite being railed a few hours ago.

And the third and final reason, no one really wants to deal with someone like Jeongguk. 

He doesn’t look it, but Jeongguk thinks that if he saw someone with smudged eyeliner, swollen lips, and scars long enough to scare kids on his arms, he would steer clear too.

He’s been trying to steer clear from himself for the last seventeen years.

Maybe it’s because of the fact that it’s early enough in the morning to still hear birds chirping in fucking downtown, or the fact that it’s Sunday, but Jeongguk doesn’t run into anyone on the way back. Call it luck or maybe fate (since he usually vomits in his room), but he manages to scrape the rest of his insides from his chest onto the dirt behind a pretty blue house down the street before climbing through his window. Careful and steady.

He’s fallen enough times on the floor below the sharp windowsill to have bruises that splatter his knees and elbows, so it’s a miracle that Jeongguk crawls into his bed, smudges and all, relatively okay. He doesn’t waste time to fall into a slumber that feels so unacceptably sober that it takes him nearly an hour to fall asleep. 

If sweating and gasping for air counted as sleep.

Jeongguk “sleeps” a good hour or so before his foster mom Ruth is banging on the door loud enough to dig into the nightmare Jeongguk’s having. It’s nothing new really, the nightmares that is. It gets worse when he’s sober, Jeongguk thinks. 

“That whore is here. Won’t let him stand on my porch long enough to attract any attention so hurry the hell up.” One more frightening bang and footsteps following angry muttering disappear down the hall before the silence becomes a little overwhelming.

Jeongguk wakes and feels like death. Wants to walk around the earth as a ghost instead of a living person if it meant not feeling like _this_. 

He opens his eyes and feels like the world is as good as being gone because with the way Jeongguk’s body can physically just not right now is a lot to handle at whatever time it currently is.

So he lays there for a long while that feels like years but is probably only seconds. His head filled with cotton balls, mouth dry and toxic. His body feels like a bus ran into it and reversed over his bones. Tired and lost and so utterly sober, Jeongguk thinks that anything hurts less than the start of withdrawals. 

Jeongguk is, as he’s always come to know, a fuck up.

An awful, bruised and battered person, pretty enough to be considered fuckable and have half of his grade to hate his guts about it. High enough most of the time to be a living person even if it feels like dying when the lows come. It’s also got to do with a lot of other things that make the “fuck up” title a lot more apparent.

For one, Jeongguk doesn’t remember his dad that much. His mom had told him that he was a banker. Someone who counted money and helped people deposit checks and took care of their debt and shit. Jeongguk isn’t too sure if that means he’s supposed to be glad about it either. His mom had told him this while she laid half alive on a ratty couch, tank top battered and dirty in the winter cold. 

Ruth used to laugh about it all the time when Jeongguk first arrived at the small house years ago. 

“The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree huh?”

Her cackle ringing in his ears as she grabbed his arm and glared at the fresh angry scars and small prick points of a needle that had been introduced to Jeongguk at age ten. 

Jeongguk remembers screaming and thrashing and yelling when Ruth locked him in his room for a month during the summer to get the heroin out of his system. 

It wasn’t his fault, really. The night his mom overdosed and died, the ambulance arrived quick enough to recover his shaking mom, leaving the hiding Jeongguk alone in a heater-less apartment that smelled like piss and cigarettes. 

Although Jeongguk doesn’t remember everything, he knows that his mom wasn’t cold at all the night she died despite it being one of the coldest winters to date in New York. The wind and ice seeping in through moldy floors and open windows his mom insisted be open.

In fact, from what Jeongguk can mostly remember, his mom had complained about the _heat_ leading up to her overdose.

“It’s always too hot in the winter isn’t it Jeongguk?”

Jeongguk had enough sense at the age of ten or so to lay the blanket he was shivering in to lay it down on his mom. The skeletal outline of her body sweaty and soaked in bile and cigarette smoke smudges. 

“Get it off me, ‘s too hot guk.”

Jeongguk remembers the ambulance leaving him despite him hiding. It was the calmest Jeongguk’s ever been in his entire life.

He doesn’t know if it was because his mom was finally gone, or maybe the fact that he was all alone and not a single person cared, but either way, Jeongguk thinks that this part of his life was the most relieving. 

And, when CPS finally picked up the pieces to the woman that died a few days ago, Jeongguk was on the brink of death himself. 

They barged in like the ambulance people did, and Jeongguk does remember this part because the euphoria he felt for the first time in his life hit like a hurricane in his veins. Strong and wild and so so _good_. 

CPS rushed him to the hospital. The hospital couldn’t do much except wait for the high to come down enough to do something. And although the doctors told him as carefully as they could, Jeongguk knows if he pressed the little remaining dose in his arm (the same way his mom would do every night) he wouldn’t be here.

Ruth got him two days after the high came down and the withdrawals started.

Hence the month in a room. The memory still burns and July still hurts a deeper part of Jeongguk than he will ever like to admit to.

So, Jeongguk doesn’t really know that much about his dad. All he could comprehend from his mom’s rambling while she was higher than a kite was that he died when Jeongguk was born. The night of. He’s not too sure if he got murdered like his mom said or if maybe he left, but Jeongguk didn’t really know him so it didn’t hurt all that bad.

Hurt a lot less than his mom’s death. 

Not because he missed her, but because his life as a foster child started and he will never forget the feeling of his skin crawling and the smell of his own vomit the month he was locked within those four walls, withdrawals singeing his skin with lies that he was going to die if he didn’t get a needle in his arm.

_“For your own good. Can’t believe they gave me a fucking heroin addict, Jesus Christ.”_

So yeah, Jeongguk is a fuck up in every sense of the word. And the sobriety isn’t really doing that great of a job steering him away from the fact.

“I said get out of this damn room _now_ or that fucking whore is gonna get shot at.” Ruth yells out again from behind the door, banging so hard Jeongguk is afraid it will come unhinged.

Jeongguk moans a tired sigh and crawls out of bed, wishing the sun would crumple up and die. At least for another five minutes. 

“Fuck off, I’m coming.”

Not that it’s _anyone’s_ business, but some days, Jeongguk can’t fucking breathe long enough to be considered alive. His chest still feels empty and hollow from the vomit he left in that backyard of the blue house and his head feels like someone stuffed a pound of cotton balls into his brain and made living a lot harder than it really should be.

He throws on a shirt that really should have no right to be that dirty or smelly, and a pair of blue jeans that compliment the shape of his ass enough to be borderline obscene but safe enough for public viewing. The make-up wipes he stole from that Walmart downtown does a hell of a better job on his eyeliner smudges than water and napkins ever did, and his hair can be solved with a hoodie.

Now, although there are a lot of things that are shitty and absolutely awful in the shitshow that is Jeongguk Jeon’s life (one of them being the shitty foster parents that have somehow kept him barely alive long enough to get a check from the government), there is a single thing in this thing called life that Jeongguk thinks would amount to every fucking thing he knows to love and care for: Jimin.

Jimin Park is a lot of things, truly. 

But Jeongguk thinks if he had to pick a single word to describe the boy, he is _life_.

However cliche and sappy that may sound, Jeongguk thinks that it’s the truth and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise. 

The trip down the stairs nearly sends Jeongguk to the hospital by the way he stumbles so damn much, but he makes it to the center hallway leading to the front door before Ruth can land an insult or worse, a punch. 

So far, so good. Jeongguk thinks.

“Took you long enough.” Jimin hums out. He’s dressed in an outfit that would not be deemed public worthy but Jeongguk smiles all the more about it, “You ready to go get pancakes?”

Jeongguk feels his empty chest fill up slowly. A constant like the showers during monsoon season that fill up the dams and rivers with reverie waiting for another long dry season ahead.

“Of course, let me get my shoes on.” Jeongguk tried his best to not look as awful as he does, shoving his feet into his sneakers he brought from his room. The sneakers are a tight fit now that Jeongguk is hitting another growth spurt, but no one really cares enough inside this house he doesn’t want to call home, to buy him anything new. He’ll worry about it later.

“Ruth almost pulled out her shotgun.” Jimin mumbles around his cigarette once they’ve both left the little house and have begun walking to the small diner, Jimin’s hips constantly swaying to a beat that Jeongguk can’t hear, “If I didn’t know better, I would think we’re in the south or some shit. The homophobic south.” 

“The entire south is homophobic Jimin.” Jeongguk scoffs. He squints against the sunshine of mid April that tends to reflect and shimmer whenever Jeongguk is sober enough to notice. 

See, the problem with most of the things Jeongguk knows to be true is that the majority of said things are _not_. Staying high for the sake of not being sober being one of them.

Because, if staying sober were like a cliff, Jeongguk continues to do whatever he can to push back against the wind that pushes and pushes and _pushes_. So much so that if Jeongguk is sober long enough, he can feel the shards of glass pressing into his ribs, his skin stretching and tightening until Jeongguk can’t stand being alive. Not when it’s worth all this trouble.

Jeongguk starts planning a way to get more of _anything_ at the party that’s supposed to be happening tonight to quell the feeling of withdrawals he can start feeling to crawl up his spine and strangle his brain. The party is nothing as shady as the one he went to last night, but a high school party that seems too amateur to Jeongguk, he’s still considering whether to go or not. (He’ll go regardless though because when you’re a drug addict, the drugs tend to be the thing that gets Jeongguk to do anything)

He’s forgotten about the dull ache in his head and body and _soul_ long enough to notice that Jimin has slowed down his bounce and suddenly starts wrapping his arm around Jeongguk’s tired body and linking their fingers together in a hold that mimics a snake’s on it’s prey.

“Ow, fuck.” 

“You okay?” Jimin asks slowly. 

He tends to do this thing where whenever he wants to show emotion and sincerity, he has to form a threshold of pain to let the other person know what he’s capable of.

Not that Jeongguk knows this from a lot of experience, but he knows enough of it to know what Jimin is trying to say.

_Something’s wrong. Tell me or die_.

Jeongguk fights the uprising of embers and flame that flare up at the question. He knows well enough to know that Jimin means well whenever he does this, but it still evokes a survival reaction so strong from Jeongguk that he wants to fight until there’s blood. July burns bright in his chest.

He swallows around the awful taste on his tongue (the younger just now realizing that he didn’t brush his teeth this morning) and tries a smile on despite knowing Jimin will realize it’s all fake.

“I’m all good, how are you?” Jeongguk is really good at pretending things are great when they’re not (So well that sometimes Jeongguk forgets that he’s fooling himself). He just hopes that Jimin will fall into that place where he believes Jeongguk too.

But sometimes, Jeongguk forgets that he’s not the only one who is looking out for himself. 

“That’s a whole lot of bullshit that just came out of your mouth right now.” Jimin smiles, a total contrast to the way Jeongguk’s hand is currently being smashed, “Now tell me the truth babyboy.”

Jeongguk thinks that even though the majority of his life is spent either finding enough money to get high or alive enough to be living, Jimin is something beautiful and true.

“Fuck, ouch.” Jeongguk yelps, shrinking away from the pain, “Fine, fine! God”

Jimin releases his hand only slightly. Jeongguk takes it as his time to speak.

“It’s been...difficult.” Jeongguk starts, a low grumble in his stomach that makes the walk towards the diner a whole lot more worthwhile. Jimin hums, a low melodic thing that makes Jeongguk love him more, “I think this is the first time in months that I’ve been sober.” Jeongguk admits.

And it’s not like it’s that big of a deal really, but Jinim’s eyes shimmer for a second longer than would have been deemed okay, and then Jeongguk feels shittier with the whole situation.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

For the majority of Jeongguk’s life, he likes to think of himself as a villain in his own life. Villainizing his body for the sake of a high that often hung around long enough for a decently long album to finish. It was a shitty way to live he knows, but he thinks that sometimes, when he’s destroying his own life, he crashes into others’ lives too and fucks it up for them too.

Jimin being a prime example.

See, if Jimin Park is anything to go by, the entirety of Jeongguk’s life only further explains why Jimin could be a stranger to him. Their friendship is made from pure luck and perseverance from Jimin’s side. It’s not that interesting of a story, truth be told. If anything, it’s how any friendship starts in high school.

At a party.

Jeongguk knows for a fact that the night that he met Jimin, it had been the clearest night he had had the pleasure of seeing since he could remember. The thing about New York was that most of time, the clouds did an annoyingly great job at covering the stars and moonlight, leaving Jeongguk to walk back to his house in a dark so deep and lonely that Jeongguk would remember the way his mom looked when the heroin killed her. How it was killing him.

This night though—some summer-heated night in August—Jeongguk could see the way the earth shifted above him. Steady and true. The moonlight bright enough to guide any dark thought Jeongguk had, away and far. It was a good night. 

A beautiful one.

Contrary to popular belief, Jeongguk did believe in fate. At least, at the time. Because although his life so far had been a mess of abuse and sex and drugs, he still liked to imagine a world where he could be the kid that had it all. A friend, a home, parents, a boyfriend maybe.

And maybe, despite his life up until this point had been nothing but cold nights walking back to his room, drunk or high out of his mind, he believed that the second he saw Jimin, it felt _right._

In the way the plunge of a needle is pointed away from a damaged vein. In the same way the crescendo of a song starts just as Jeongguk feels his veins burning delicious and sickly. The same way that Jeongguk moans and arches when a man twice his age hits the spot inside him with such deadly accuracy, Jeongguk thinks he could scream.

Jimin felt right the same way breathing feels right when you’ve been drowning your entire fucking life.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“I couldn’t really help but notice you staring at me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, really. It’s just that I think you’re right.”

“About what?”

“Dunno. Was hoping you’d be able to show me that part.”

And aside from the part where Jimin shoved Jeongguk up against the side of the house and kissed him with so much _ache_ that Jeongguk was positive this is where he could get murdered from the drugs and be genuinely glad with his life up until this point, Jeongguk found that Jimin fits like lungs fit to protect the soft important parts of a body.

So really, Jimin shouldn’t have stuck around as long as he has. Two years really should be a wake up call to anyone with half a brain, but Jimin tends to walk the edge between life and death. Tends to flirt with the boy who overdosed at ten years old and still doesn’t expect anything from him other than being a human. A friend maybe.

“I’m really sorry Jimin.” Jeongguk whispers after he makes a move to unlatch himself from Jimin. The shorter boy grips him firm, not letting him escape.

“Don’t apologize okay?” Jimin hugs him steady and so true that Jeongguk remembers that clear august night with fervor so intense he wants to cry a little. He doesn’t and instead listens to the sad tone of the smaller boy’s breath, “I didn’t know that you were lonely.”

Jeongguk wants to say that he _isn’t_ but it still feels like a lie despite Jeongguk knowing how true it rings.

“If you’d have told me..” 

They’re still walking. Still moving. It’s probably ten thirty ish and Jeongguk thinks that Jimin knows the breakfast special will end in thirty minutes because despite Jeongguk’s entire body feeling like wanting to collapse on the sidewalk and sink so deep into a sob that it wracks his body, he moves Jeongguk along with him regardless.

“It’s my own decisions that have brought me here. It’s no one’s fault but mine.” Jeongguk starts, wanting to make absolutely certain that despite the things that Jimin has seen from Jeongguk, it doesn’t have anything to do with him. None at all.

And Jimin looks more sombre than sad now, his bounce gone and his faded pink hair following the pattern of the wind with ease. Effortlessly. 

Jimin doesn’t say anything Jeongguk knows he wants to say, and instead turns the direction of the conversation towards something more lighthearted. Asks Jeongguk about how he slept, scolds him for not sleeping much, tells Jeongguk that they can come over to his to nap, and no don’t look upset when I pay for our breakfast Jeongguk, I invited you out didn’t I? 

Jeongguk thinks that though the clouds of April have done so much to hide the clear blue of the sky and the shimmer of the sun, Jeongguk doesn’t care at all, if it doesn’t affect the nighttime.

As long as the night is clear, and the earth tilts with you, I think the moonlight will do an alright job of leading us home, Jimin.

Jeongguk believes these things to be true.

———-

Namjoon has come to know the earth he inhabited when he was younger.

The way the earth moved in slow tilts rather than actual orbits. How the grass stopped growing and the trees lost their soul whenever the winds whipped through, wild and certain.

Namjoon feels certain that being depressed so early in life has led him to do many things that people could argue aided in his self-development, but in all honesty, Namjoon thinks that it’s mostly just been a few long years away from scars and sleepless nights that have done the trick.

What’s that saying again? You can take the boy out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the boy?

Namjoon laughs at that Jungle Book reference as he sits comfortable in his pajamas, long legs spread out on cold floor, his socks off and his toes moving freely.

His room still feels too large for the six foot man, but Namjoon thinks that the newly painted blue on his walls is doing something to the make the room seem less terrifying.

Yoongi had said that meditation works wonders for mental health. It won’t cure everything, obviously, but Namjoon has had enough experience in the small space of their shared London studio to know that it can improve Yoongi’s grumpy moods and intense mood swings. 

“Maybe if I put some music on..”

Namjoon would be lying if he said that he is completely tuned in with himself. Truth be told, Namjoon can’t remember a time when he was. Be it the hellish years of high school that broke the resolve Namjoon had built up before he broke, or maybe just the self-deprecating nature of a teenager, but Namjoon remembers being so completely lost that he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Remembers feeling that way for so long now, he’s not sure he can ever become a person again.

_“Meditation isn’t about being calm. I mean, okay, it kind of is, but at the same time not really_.” Namjoon remembers Yoongi telling him, voice slow and strong, like he was trying to be the hyung in the phonecall they had last night, _“It’s about like, realizing that you’re here and that you know you’re here and shit. It gets a lot of fun when you can feel yourself existing in the space you’re in. It’s like really cool and interesting but also forces a lot of self reflection when you’re ready to address it.”_

Namjoon wonders if there’s anything he wants to address. Something deeper than his mind can feel, something his conscience has been holding onto for a while.

It’s really not as dramatic as Yoongi had made it out to be, but Namjoon knows that without a sense of real and true sense of wanting to do this, it would be useless. So, without much of a second thought, Namjoon thinks of roads and waves and the sun and moon. 

_“You don’t have to start super big Joon. Just sit there and think of your breathing and the way your body feels in your space and then get bigger.”_

Namjoon stops his already racing mind from thinking about life on the moon, and focuses on his breath. Trying his best to not keep track of the times his chest wheezes in and out. (He caught a cold the first night home because he forgot to turn on the heater and now he’s dealing with a cold that feels like death.)

Namjoon focuses on the way his chest rises and falls. The way he’s sitting, comfortable on a cushion and then starts to assess his space from his head to the tips of his toes. 

It gets easier from there because it feels like he’s on the brink of falling asleep, but in a space where he’s aware and alert.

_“Self reflection hurts like hell but I think it’s a good place to start. Know what you want, what you value you know? Get to know yourself again.”_

Namjoon knows that it’s been a weird couple of weeks. It’s September now and despite the summer completely swallowing him whole with university paperwork and moving, it feels like he hasn’t had time to address the obvious issue that is weighing on his mind. His mom’s mind and Yoongi’s as well.

He’s back home.

A problem for a number of reasons.

Reason number one—the thing that Yoongi got upset with him over and the one Namjoon’s mom hasn’t brought up to her friends whenever they visit—the offer he declined.

For Namjoon, life has been a whirlwind of emotion for as long as he can remember. He can still recall the way the girl on the playground kissed him while he burned bright and hot, the turmoil his mind went hurdling through during high school, the instant love he felt for his roommate with pink lips and pinker fingertips.

It’s all been a pretty dramatic thing that’s gotten Namjoon into a couple of crying fits whenever Yoongi would go out for drinks with friends and text back a sleazy “I’ll be back tomorrow morning don’t wait up”.

And okay, sure, Namjoon’s felt a lot of things that have unraveled and twisted and choked his heart into a hold so tight it felt like an earthshattering moment that would define the rest of his life forever, but none of that really happened when he got accepted into the top researching lab in the country.

In fact, it made him feel weak and small and so utterly tiny that Namjoon had a panic attack when he read the email. Yoongi very nearly took him to the hospital because of the scare.

Everyone was so happy for him. His professors somehow got wind of the news and called Namjoon out in the middle of lecture about it. His mom didn’t call for a few days because he didn’t tell her yet. He knew she knew though from Yoongi’s long ass post about being Namjoon’s roommate and best friend and how _proud_ he was of the six foot scientist that spoons him at night.

Everything was going to plan, Namjoon thinks. Why did he have to mess it up so badly?

Namjoon thinks that even if the world presented itself as something that would open up for him and let him divulge in every thing he wanted, it would still amount to nothing if it meant that it was going to be gone the next moment.

Namjoon’s therapist says that he has trust issues that are rooted in the death of his father and the betrayal of his stepdad. Says that it burnt him so badly, his coping mechanism usually tended to be denial and anger.

The anger, Namjoon can attest to.

The night Yoongi brought back expensive soju and chicken from the Korean place a few blocks away, (this is how Namjoon knew Yoongi was really fucking proud of him) Namjoon couldn’t hold it in anymore. He snapped and yelled so loud his throat ached and his eyes were puffy by the end of it. 

Because, no matter what anyone says about pain and betrayal and trauma, no one really talks about the ugly monster that is left after it is over. How it grows and tends to make Namjoon want to hurt the people he loves so intensely, they will feel how he felt. He wanted to hurt Yoongi as bad as the world as hurt him.

So he did.

Yoongi set the chicken down, tears threatening to spill over his pretty face, and Namjoon thinks that if he could have repeated it, he wouldn’t do it again but he knows the hurt would be too painful not to.

Yoongi punched Namjoon’s nose and broke it that night. It was as painful as Namjoon knew Yoongi felt.

The other thing that no one really shares is the fact that when the anger leaves and melts into a relief so deep and refreshing, it gets dried out in the desert and the guilt comes crashing in like dunes. Hot and burning with every touch.

Namjoon still thinks that he deserved that punch even though Yoongi immediately stopped and cried in horror at his stupid roommate’s bleeding face.

They didn’t really talk about it after, and when they came back from the Emergency room at roughly three am, Namjoon cleaned up the broken soju cups and wiped the soju that leaded out of the bottle. 

It somehow managed to sink into Namjoon’s notebooks and the small moleskin that he kept in a shoebox under his desk. The one where he wrote words he imagined saying to Yoongi.

_Kiss me one time, I’m dying to know. I love you so much I think one day it will encompass me and I won’t be able to survive that. Let me take care of you the way you deserve to be taken care of hyung._

Yoongi fell asleep that night with his back facing Namjoon. If this had been any other night, Namjoon would initiate the spooning, letting his arms wrap around the fragile frame of his roommate and let his lips tickle the hair at the nape of Yoongi’s neck. 

Except it wasn’t any other night and Namjoon got the hint.

He waited long enough to hear the telltale sign of Yoongi’s slumber before he slipped out into the night. 

London has always been a destination Namjoon has come to love. The cold air under the sky only solidifies this feeling when Namjoon steps to be under a ledge. It started to rain and Namjoon doesn’t believe in a god, but he believed that at that moment, he had to stop lying to his mom and tell her the awful truth.

“You’re coming back home?”

The surprise is evident in her voice and Namjoon may be many many awful bloodthirsty things, but he is not a bad son.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

And for one horrifyingly long second, Namjoon doesn’t hear her speak.

“Of course it is honey. Whatever you need.”

Namjoon also tells her about the news and she tells him that that’s amazing and that she should probably be going to sleep soon. 

“Can I call you tomorrow?” She asks. It’s tentative, like she’s afraid Namjoon is currently at the ledge of a building, ready to hurl himself into the end of existence.

“Yeah mom, call whenever you want. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you before I knew you Joon. I love you.” 

And she hangs up before Namjoon can speak and he’s glad because he’s sure that if he continued speaking, he would find the way to the roof and start a steady conversation that’s been addressed before. Should he leave?

“Should I leave?” Namjoon hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep and his broken nose still aches when he speaks and Yoongi is still so pretty when he wakes with puffy eyes.

“Joon..”

“Because, I know I’m like a really bad personn and I don’t always have the right thing to say when I want to say them, but I can leave if you want me to.” Namjoon is breathless with the ache in his mind and body, but it’s a feeling he’s come to know.

Yoongi sits up, removes the blankets that have pooled around him during the night and he sneezes.

“Fuck you.” Yoongi starts, still wiping his nose from the sneeze, not quite looking at Namjoon, “Fuck you Joon.”

And yeah okay, he definitely deserved that.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah? Well, are you $80 sorry? Because that soju cost me a fucking arm.” Yoongi is small when he wakes and it gets worse when he sneezes again, this time with a fervor that makes his entire body tremble.

Namjoon stops himself from cooing.

“I’ll pay you back.”

“You don’t have a job Joon.”

“I’ll get a job and pay you back.”

Yoongi huffs. Still so adorably small and sneezing in the bright morning sunshine.

“Just..” Yoongi says. Teetering towards the edge of the bed in a way that spikes Namjoon’s anxiety, “don’t leave okay?”

And for another horrifyingly sick moment, Namjoon thinks Yoongi knows everything he told his mom a few hours ago.

“Just please don’t leave me okay?” Yoongi looks up at Namjoon and how can he even say no to his best friend? To his roommate?

“Okay.” Namjoon whispers.

“Okay.” Yoongi scratches his arm and the goosebumps that rise on his skin makes Namjoon worried, “Can’t believe you really just left me alone last night.”

Namjoon turns his attention back to Yoongi’s face and he’s _crying_. Tears drip down his chin and his nose starts bleeding because Namjoon knows for a fact that Yoongi hasn’t had an ounce of water for at least eighteen hours. 

In little ways that Namjoon has come to know about Yoongi, he watches the older cry even more about the blood and snot that starts dripping down his face along with the salty tears.

And Namjoon has never been so in love.

Yoongi eventually passes out from how much blood starts spraying out of his nose and Namjoon likes to think that despite how hard he fell for his roommate, he still finds it pretty gross how Yoongi can go from endearing to disgusting. Yoongi wakes up a few seconds later with blood on his shirt and the sheets and his face, but he smiles when he sees Namjoon right there with him.

“Can we nap for the rest of the day?”

“Of course yoon.”

“Good. I barely slept at all after you left. Thought you were never going to come back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up and hold me to make up for it. I think I may have caught a cold when you left. You’re my heater you know.”

They don’t talk about the way Namjoon starts packing things up slowly before Yoongi confronts him about it and stares at him watery-eyed and says that he’ll do the packing while Namjoon deals with the paperwork that will be many. 

Including the paperwork that says that Namjoon declined his offer to the top research lab in the country.

Namjoon and Yoongi spend the rest of the summer joking about how Yoongi will inevitably shrivel up from the cold nights and how he will miss Namjoon so much he will cry in the shower like in the romance movies. They go for walks in the summer heat and buy ice cream and watch movies together, boxers on and shirts abandoned. 

That summer in London lives in Namjoon so fiercely still that sometimes when he touches himself in the shower, he thinks of tipping Yoongi’s face up and kissing him with the same fervor that the summer sun brought. He thinks of pink lips and pink knuckles and a pink tongue. 

Namjoon doesn’t like to think of it too much, but if the world would have allowed it, Namjoon would be willing to give up the entirety of his lifetime if he could see Yoongi again. Hold him like he does and tell him of the love the threatens to break his chest most nights.

He feels that the only things that tend to make Namjoon happy now these days is the fact that he hasn’t addressed the entire issue of problem number one. 

Not quite yet.

Namjoon opens his eyes and lets the anger and love and fire settle into his veins the same way mudslides settle into the earth after having fallen off the side of a mountain. It stings a little and hurts a lot but it’s well worth the time to think about for the next couple of hours.

He lays fully down onto the floor of his room and stares at the sky above and wonders about the ways in which Namjoon would kill to destroy again. Let the anger similar to the one he showed Yoongi eat away at him and tear him flesh by flesh to the marrow of his bones.

Namjoon is done meditating it seems, but the majority of his life has always been a time to think and think is what he does when he lets himself fall back into the turning of the earth.

Thinks of Yoongi and his mom and the other stuff he probably has to self-reflect on. Too much, he instantly thinks. That’s too much to reflect about.

_“It hurts like hell, but I think it helps. Or well, I hope it does or this would really be for nothing huh?”_

Namjoon finds himself agreeing with that comment and then lets himself sink into a nap that he thinks will make Yoongi proud, all the way in London.

The next few days back home are as traitorously slow as ever. 

Namjoon thinks that if the only thing he looked forward to most days is either talking to Yoongi or having dinner with his mom, then that would be a pretty good life. But because Namjoon is himself and he needs to find something to do, he goes for walks in the evenings.

If he had had enough money to ship his pretty yellow bike from London to New York, then he would have, but as Yoongi mentioned earlier, he didn’t have a job. So, even though Namjoon likes to walk around the neighborhood a couple of time, he still misses the way his bike moves underneath him, making him feel like a kid all over again.

So he settles for walks instead and watches with steady eyes as the birds hop across the lawns like they’re dancing and how the trees move when the wind blows. It’s all very calming and although Namjoon has always wanted to leave this place for as long as he’s come to know, he also loves the way the earth beneath him still remembers the boy he used to be.

It’s not very exciting most evenings and Namjoon’s not too upset about it.

Except one on evening, as he’s a few blocks from his house, he watches as an ambulance whizzes past him. Ever so fast and ever so terrifying.

A lot of things hit Namjoon all at once and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was on the phone with Yoongi at that precise moment, he proabably would have gone into a panic attack.

_“Was that an ambulance? Are you alright Joon?”_ Yoongi asks with a delicacy that is exclusively for moments like these. Where the hurt stabs across space and time and Yoongi feels it as intensely as Namjoon does. If more so.

“I’m alright.” He says, despite freezing on the sidewalk, watching how the squealing ambulance stops at the house a few houses ahead of where Namjoon currently is, “someone’s hurt I think.”

Namjoon can’t hear Yoongi’s input. Maybe because of the way that the blood starts pumping through his head and throughout his body. Or maybe because of the way that the first responders have rushed into the house, one goal in their mind.

The next few moments, no matter how much he likes to not admit it to his therapist, changed his life.

Because, when you’ve been a depressed kid in high school where it feels like the entirety of life is encapsulated in the small four years of school, suicide seems like a pretty good option. Or at the very least seemed like a pretty good option to fifteen year old Namjoon.

“There’s a...there’s someone on the stretcher. Oh my fucking god, I think he’s dead.”

Namjoon likes to think that the summer in London amounted to a lot of things that would come to blossom and bloom within both Yoongi and Namjoon if they let it. But the day September comes crashing around, in full force and with a ferocity that matches the hot summer days with Yoongi in London, Namjoon thinks that this moment would be close to topping the other.

The boy on the stretcher is hard to see when the paramedics are pumping his chest up and down with aggression so intense, Namjoon is afraid he will see the cracking of the boy’s ribs right here and now if that paramedic doesn’t give up a little.

The next thing that really becomes apparent in the midst of the chaos and quiet disaster is the birds chirping in the trees, making a beautiful soundtrack to the way Namjoon’s life begins to fall. A beautifully awful beginning.

And okay, Namjoon may be romanticizing this a whole lot, but it doesn’t stand any less true that Namjoon felt like maybe, if he hadn’t decided to start taking walks, he wouldn’t know of love that encompasses farther than a roommate with pink lips and pink fingertips.

The last thing Namjoon remembers is that the stretcher becomes a home to a body that houses an arm that dangles off the side. It’s a small detail that Namjoon would have definitely overlooked had it not been for the way that the needle sticking into the arm falls and meet the driveway with a crash so small and insignificant, Namjoon thinks that he may be hyper-focusing.

It’s the last thing he really remembers before turning around and walking back home with a phone that is resounding a dial tone because Yoongi hung up to call Namjoon’s mom. He knew what would happen next, unfortunately.

His mom finds him on the side of the road, shaking and scared, a panic attack gripping his chest so tight and hard that Namjoon legitimately believes that the world will cave in and take Namjoon as a hostage. 

It doesn’t take much before it’s a full blown attack and he passes out, remembering the way the ambulance lights flashed bright and red and angry. The arm dangling off still apparent in his mind when he drifts off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me two/three days to write Jeongguk’s part and two hours to write Namjoon’s. 
> 
> I’m semi-proud of this chapter and I wanted to jump into the plot right away and worldbuild along the way so stay tuned.
> 
> Come yell at me on Twitter @moonlitmon  
> Or in the comments below. Kudos are appreciated, and stay safe friends <3

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I’ve been home for less than a week and my brain is already super muddled so I’m trying my best to write down what I’ve been thinking of. This idea has been brewing in my mind since sophomore year of high school, uni seemed to get me out of it for a while but I’m back at square one, really.
> 
> The characters have been living in my mind for a while, and regardless of if I’ve known this to be true, I think this will be an experience for me and whoever decides to read this.
> 
> You can come yell at me on Twitter @moonlitmon
> 
> Edit: I didn’t click the option for chapters so I apologize to those first few readers who thought this was a one shot.


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